Christmas Fairs and new to the website...

Hello again,

The Christmas Fairs are over and were a success - phew! I did well at the school fairs, having booked double tables and spread my wares out. As usual I brought so much stock "just in case", but it means a wider variety to choose from!
I also had a table at the Christmas Concrete Market in Croydon. This was held at the Green Dragon pub on the High Street, though maybe a little far south of the main shopping area. It was a nice atmosphere with a lovely selection of sellers, but unfortunately not that many buyers came in. We still made a profit and enjoyed a huge sharing plate of nachos! You can read more about the Concrete Market here.

You can see my stall style has evolved into a more "vintage" style look with cake stands - very handy for a small table - and my new shelf unit my husband made for me, which has slotted in shelves and packs flat. I'm not sure I could manage it if I didn't travel by car though, as we had three large very heavy bags even with just this small amount!  

It's been really busy on my website over the last month too. I have managed to make and add some new Steampunk jewellery, including cufflinks, necklaces and rings, some pretty vintage style lockets which I decoupaged floral pictures onto, some collaged/decoupaged pendants and the glasses chains have been selling as fast as I can make them!

      

     

Next on my list is to make and restock any repeatable designs which are running low in stock, then relax over Christmas! Hmm, maybe an oxymoron there, as there's lots to do and "relax" and "Christmas" don't always go together!! Still, I've made my Christmas pudding and bought Tesco's Finest Bailey's substitute drink so that's something crossed off the gigantic list!

Talking of which, I'd better get the Amazon order finished...

Christmas Showcase!

Good afternoon,

Well it appears to be November already, I hope you're more prepared for Christmas than me! I can't believe how quickly this year has gone, I'm sure some months were missed out!

Anyway, to get us in the Christmas mood, why not take a look at this brilliant Christmas Showcase from the wonderwoman who brought us Support Handmade, However it's Made.

****SHHIM Christmas Showcase****

I'm sure you'll agree it's a great selection of British designer-makers (did I mention Pirate Treasures is included?!), the design of the showcase is pretty awesome - you can click on the gift tag photos to be taken straight to the seller's shop, or browse by category or view the designer's own page. You'd better get a mug of tea and some biscuits as there's so much to see!

I've made the decision to stop selling on Folksy once the last of my items delists at the end of the month. If you've read the previous posts or the Folksy forums over the last couple of months you'll know why. I'm going to try something new, but need to wait for a sunnier day than we've had recently to take some new photos! I'll blog about that when it actually happens...

So I've spent a few days moving the things from my Folksy shop over to my website http://www.pirate-treasures.com/ - there's some new jewellery in most departments plus the Emporium of Curiosities section where you can find cards, gift tags and ACEO art cards. To read more about the Emporium, have a quick look at my other blog here.

Well, I'm off to do a bit of stocktaking - not long until my first Christmas Fair of the year!

~Jane

What's new?

Hmm, well I haven't appeared to have done a showing-off of the other SHHIM shops yet, but the official Supporting Handmade - However it's Made Christmas showcase will be online soon, so I'll remember to link to that if I don't do anything myself first. Anyway, int he meantime you can click the link above to go to the page and see the increasing amount of crafters/artisans involved!

I've still been hard at work on the website SEO,  gosh it's driving me round the bend, but interesting to see how it changes the search results on Google.

So what's new for Pirate Treasures? I have three events booked - 26th November at Oasis Academy Coulsdon's Christmas Fair, 3rd December at Keston Primary School (Old Coulsdon) for their Christmas fair and Sunday 4th December at the Christmas Concrete Market at the Green Dragon pub on Croydon High Street - more about that here. 

On the Pirate Treasures website this month I have added several new designs to the vintage inspired range - a cool new octopus charm bracelet and matching necklace. A sweet little birdcage charm necklace, vintage style chrysanthemum necklace and brass owl earrings.

The pirate jewellery range also has some new designs including a cameo charm bracelet, plectrum and charms bracelet and a matching ivory pearl bracelet, necklace and earrings.

 

Phew, well that's kept me busy! Next I'm going to be making Christmas cards and gift tags, so hope to show some of them next time.

Bye for now,

Jane

I'm back!!

Oh dear, where did the summer go?
Well it's actually amazingly warm and sunny today, so feeling very summery although it's almost October - how strange!
During the actual summer, we spent a week in Italy staying in Lido di Jesolo and one day visiting Venice and the islands Murano and Burano, and another day at Verona and Sirmione on Lake Garda. Then a weekend at home followed by three nights in Paris - fabulous!

September has been a bit of a strange month.

 It started out in confusion as Folksy announced their new "clarification" to what is in fact "handmade". Unfortunately they didn't make it at all clear and caused great upset and sadly a bit of nastiness on the Folksy Forums. I've been trying to stay out of it as I haven't decided whether to continue there or not. Basically Folksy want to become a little more upmarket and concentrate on their definition of handmade. However, they have handled it quite badly and many sellers are left very confused, as some of the rules are a bit ambiguous or contradictory advice has been given to different people. I understand Folksy's wish to move away from the hundreds of "bung it on a chain" charm necklaces on sale, but what constitutes "original design" has been interpreted differently and inconsistently. Unfortunately my best sellers were what is now classed as "unacceptable" to Folksy - I sold six pairs of owl charm earrings in the run up to last Christmas, but won't be able to do that this year as they use mass-produced charms.

However, the super-cool Shirley-Ann from http://www.diddybears.com/ has cheered us up by devoting some of her webspace and a huge amount of time and effort to put together a page  Supporting Handmade However it's Made - click the link or the badge on the right to take you there, where you can see all the lovely shops selling jewellery, crochet, teacup candles, cards etc. You can also keep up to date with these designers on Twitter with the hashtag #shhim. I'm intending to do a Folksy Friday style treasury of SHHIM, but you know I'm a bit rubbish at blogging!

I've been busy doing lots of boring SEO work on my Pirate Treasures Jewellery website, tweaking meta tags, keywords and descriptions etc. It's ongoing, so I'll be doing that for the forseeable future!

Though I've also added another category to the site, the Emporium of Curiosities, which will stock cards, gift tags, art and textiles from my Folksy shop, which may be closing due to the aforementioned hoohah!

I've been adding new jewellery, a whole load of flower earrings, which I have previously had in my Pirate Treasures Folksy shop, on my old Facebook shop and at local events. There are a couple of glasses chains, in bronze and silver with glass pearl beads.

So, until next time, keep Supporting Handmade - However it's Made! Don't forget you can follow me on Twitter here, where I have tweeted more often in the last month than in the entire time I've been on Twitter! 

What I've been up to...Challenge 52 weeks 14-15

Good Afternoon!

So, the fetes & fairs are over for the Summer (yippee!) and now I need to work on the website and a jewellery party I have booked for next weekend.

I got some lovely flower cabochons and ring bases through the post last week, so have been making some new accessories, as modelled by my Glamourous Assistant who has actually nabbed a couple of these for herself, so we need to make some more ASAP!

I decided to make a couple of really over-the-top pirate theme necklaces for the website http://www.pirate-treasures.com/, they took ages to make but I think they look pretty cool!

I also made another new pirate necklace, which has been featured on the Secret Carousel blog today. Secret Carousel is a great new website, which is a showcase and directory of the UK's alternative clothing & accessories online stores.

June was my best ever month for website sales and July has been pretty busy so far, so while it's a bit quieter in August I'll be closing the shop for a couple of weeks. I've been meaning to get a gallery of sold designs done and delete them from the main shop pages as it's getting a bit clogged up with 'out of stock' things. I also want to get a completely new category up and running - details of that nearer the time.
I'd probably get on with it so I can start September with new collections and exciting stuff...
~Jane

Summer Fair season - Challenge 52 weeks 11-13

Phew! I've just done the last of my three Summer fetes. It was a mixed season...

The first fete I do is at my local Primary School where I also work at lunchtimes. I think this helps as the children know me and as I've been doing the Summer fete and the Christmas Fair too they know I'll be there! As mentioned in my previous post, I always have plenty of children's jewellery and reasonably priced items. We sold a staggering 140+ of the little seed bead bracelets and 5 of those hair clip bead strands - Rebecca was a bit disappinted we didn't sell more of them as she thought they'd be snapped up. Over all, we did really well here and also got a booking for a 'girls night in' jewellery shop at home party.

The next day we were at the Friends of Caterham Dene Hospital fete, which is only a couple of miles away. There were quite a lot of stalls there this year, mostly charity ones as that's the kind of fete it is. Unfortunately the four jewellery sellers were placed in very close proximity to each other! Mind you, I don't think it made much difference as no one seemed to be buying - or even looking - we watched so many people walk down the aisle of stalls without even glancing either way. I know we're in a recession, but to not even look at what stalls there were seemed a bit strange to me. With people like that it wasn't surprising we only sold 5 things the whole time we were there and made a loss as the stall was pretty expensive - ah well, at least it was for charity and we know now to visit it as customers next year! Look at our happy smiling faces - this was before the fete started!

Yesterday we were at a Girls' secondary school nearby. By Friday I had almost decided not to go as the rain had been so torrential all week and the fair was on the school field. However, the weather forecast looked pretty good so I thought we might as well give it a go as girls=jewellery! Or so I thought...
Again, it wasn't great. The pupils of the school were all there, but seemed to be working on their own class stalls so there weren't that many of them wandering around. Our stall was on the far side of the field in the corner, so we got the most of the wind, which resulted in some of the displays falling over on a regular basis! We put the side up of the gazebo which helped a bit. In the end we made a very small profit, but if you factor in the time we spent there and the time it takes to make the jewellery, plus the £10 I gave to my glamourous assistant then it was actually a loss! 

So guess what fete we'll be doing again next year and which ones we won't! I don't think I'll bother trying to find any alternatives to do, I'll just use that time to make more website stock. In the warm and dry and non-windy house!

Challenge 52 - week 10 - fete preparation (part two)

I'm getting there!
I've made four new flowery bracelets, which are always popular.
Over the last few days I've been making lots of strands of hair beads. I was given a bag of (unworn) glittery hair clips by a friend and had wondered what to do with them, whether to just sell them individually as a 'cheaper option' for the usual children with 20p in pennies clutched in their hand...but then had the idea of hair braid style strands.
A few years ago at the local school fete a hairdresser mum used to do coloured hair strands which she melted onto your hair with her straighteners (I used to go for blue or purple!) - this was really popular and she used to have a queue for most of the afternoon.
So I thought I would attach a strand of beads to the clips with a charm at the end to finish it off. I've made 15 so far and have more clips to use, so guess what I'll be doing in a minute?!

I've no idea how I'm going to display them, maybe just lay them out on the table. Unfortunately I don't have a TARDIS for a stall, I've got far too much stock for one table! Hopefully if the weather is dry and we don't have to put the sides on the gazebo, I'll bring the old pasting table with me too and put it on one side of our space at right-angles to the main table. My daughter Rebecca helps me on my stall and usually does the children's end, so she could have a table to herself. Hmm, better get some more cloth then - another thing to add to the "to do" list!

If you're in the area and fancy coming along, my fetes are
25th June - Keston Primary School, Keston Avenue, Old Coulsdon, Surrey
26th June - Caterham Dene Hospital, Caterham Hill (opposite Queen's Park)
9th July - Wallington High School for Girls, Wallington, Surrey

Right, I'm off to vaccuum the floor and make some more of those bead strands....
~Jane